


Rings, teacups, and revelations

by doomed_spectacles



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Bill Potts is a wise and kind person, Clueless Doctor (Doctor Who), Conversations, Crowley and the Tenth Doctor do not appear in this fic, Dialogue Heavy, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), Sometimes you just need a chat to feel better about your snake husband-to-be, Unexpected Visitors, what it might mean for immortal beings to exchange rings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:48:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25344943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomed_spectacles/pseuds/doomed_spectacles
Summary: An unexpected visitor helps Aziraphale work through some feelings about his relationship with Crowley.Or,The TARDIS brings Bill Potts to a bookshop, which happens to be exactly where she is needed most in the universe.“But like, what does it mean to you?” She put her elbows on the table and leaned forward, suddenly earnestly concerned about this man’s love life with no idea why. He seemed troubled, and happy, and confused, and old. That was a dangerous combination for an ancient non-human entity, in her experience.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Twelfth Doctor & Bill Potts
Comments: 23
Kudos: 105





	Rings, teacups, and revelations

**Author's Note:**

> I've no idea what possessed me to write this, but here we are. Bill Potts and Aziraphale having a chat about love and commitment, because why not? Please note that neither Crowley nor the Tenth Doctor make an appearance.

“But this is-”

“Soho, London,” the Doctor said, clearly disappointed. “How disappointing.”

“I don’t know, could be fun,” Bill replied, looking around at the torrent of people passing by. The TARDIS was a big blue rock in a stream of people rushing to get to wherever their lives took them. To school, to work, to lunch, to the museum, maybe? To an unassuming antiquarian bookshop in Soho.

“Since when is it fun to pop across the country in the TARDIS? We didn’t even change years!” The Doctor flung his arms out and turned to face his beloved blue box. “It’s not even, hang on-”

He stuck his finger in his mouth, then held it up. None of the passersby paid him a single mind, as though a tall man in a magician’s coat holding a licked finger to the wind in the middle of the street on a Wednesday afternoon was a singularly unremarkable occurrence.

“It’s still Wednesday.” He gave the TARDIS a scornful look, but Bill saw the fondness in it and she suspected that somehow, the TARDIS did too, even if it was, technically speaking, a space-and-time-ship.

“Might as well take a look, yeah? I mean, you’re not supposed to be out and about, anyway, so why not enjoy it? Think of it as a lunch break. You get lunch breaks as a professor, don’t you?” Bill raised her eyebrows and put on a face she knew would convince him. “Popped out to London for a curry and an … antiquarian and/or unusual book,” she said, reading the sign on the front of the shop.

The Doctor looked skeptical. He usually looked skeptical. He was frowning with his mouth and his eyebrows. He also usually frowned. Bill shrugged and tugged him into the shop.

It was dim inside, which seemed surprising for a bookshop where one, presumably, might spend time reading small print. There weren’t any other customers inside that she could see. An eerie stillness hung about the entire place, making it seem both very old and slightly outside of time. It smelled like old books, stale tea, and the sort of dust that hung about the crevices of an elderly grandmother’s house no matter what anyone tried to do about it.

“Hello, may I help you?” The man had appeared from the recesses of the shop and seemed to be a part of it rather than a separate being. As if he was simply the mouthpiece of the living entity that comprised this bookshop. He was smiling politely but his demeanor was guarded, with his hands behind his back and his shoulders squared.

“You’re not human,” The Doctor said, stepping subtly in front of Bill. He hadn’t done that the last few times they’d been off-world, so why he was putting on the protective act in front of a stuffy middle-aged man in a bowtie, she had no idea. “Identify yourself.”

The white-haired man ignored him altogether. He smiled even wider and it seemed to completely fluster the Doctor. Bill grinned. Anybody that could fluster the Doctor with a smile was worth chatting up, in her book.

“Would you like a cup of tea?”

“I’d love one,” she said, stepping around the flabbergasted Time Lord.

He led her to a side table and held out a chair.

“What are you doing?” the Doctor whispered aggressively.

“Sitting.” She crossed her legs and leveled her gaze at him. He was staring, wide-eyed, at his surroundings, still looking like a tiger might come out of the woodwork and pounce at any moment. “Usually when I’m off with you, I don’t get much chance to put my feet up. So much running around, anyone ever tell you that?”

The Doctor looked away. “Might have.”

The man in the bowtie returned with a tray. He poured two cups of steaming tea and gestured towards the cream and sugar.

“Well, you two grannies can sit around having tea, but I’m going to get to the bottom of this place.” The Doctor’s tone was not nice at all.

“Oh, I somehow doubt that,” the white-haired man said sweetly.

“The TARDIS sent us here for a reason and I’ll be damned if I don’t at least try to figure it out.”

“You won’t be, dear. Now, Miss Potts, have a biscuit.”

The Doctor wandered off amongst the musty shelves, ranting about uncooperative aliens and time machines. Bill took a nibble and looked around the shop. Everything in the place was a different kind of old. She thought she spied a very small black-and-white television with rabbit ears, next to a stack of religious texts that looked like they were about to fall apart from age.

“This place is amazing,” she said, and meant it. It felt like a museum, a home, and a library wrapped up in one package. “I’ve never been in a bookshop like this one.”

The homey man across from her smiled and sipped his tea. He sighed.

“All right then?”

“Oh yes, dear. I apologize. I’ve been rather lost in thought today.”

“Yeah? Anything you want to talk about?”

“No, no, don’t trouble yourself. Since you’re traveling with _him_ , I expect you have enough on your mind.” The man inclined his head towards the back of the shop, where she could hear The Doctor mumbling. He was cataloguing works of ancient literature and then complaining bitterly about their authors.

“Yeah,” she said with a fond smile, “he’s a bit of a handful. It’s fun, though, seeing the universe. Makes you appreciate what you have, you know?”

“I can only imagine,” he said. The man laid his hands on the table. On his left hand, a slim black engagement ring contrasted with his pale skin and everything else about his person. 

Bill pointed to it. “That’s a gorgeous ring, there, eh?”

“Oh! Yes, I suppose it is,” the man said. He suddenly seemed nervous, and Bill found herself troubled by it.

“He’s lucky, that one,” Bill said, a crooked smile on her face and joy in her eyes that she tried to pass on. “He, I mean, I guess I just assumed it’s a-”

The man smiled too, and his eyes were more kind than those of any man she’d ever met. Present traveling companion included. They were so kind, she felt like she could get lost in them, then worried what she might find there if she did.

“ _He_ , yes. At the moment, anyway.”

“Yeah.” Bill nodded. The man looked at her and she felt like she didn’t need to explain. She didn’t mind explaining, she really didn’t, but with him, she felt it wasn’t necessary. Like he saw right through to the core of her and though they’d just met, he was proud of what he’d seen within her. “He’s a lucky bloke.”

“Why do you say that?” The man’s eyebrows knitted together. It made him look a bit like a koala bear. Or a quokka. She’d watched a nature documentary the other night and clearly something had stuck.

“Well,” she said, scoffing a bit. “It’s not your style then, is it? This ring?”

He looked down at the piece of jewelry on his hand.

“I mean, I don’t know you that well, but judging from this place-” she looked around the shop, full of dust and scrolls and quill feathers. Somewhere in the background, she could hear the Doctor’s sonic glasses whirring as he muttered to himself. She couldn’t see him, and she suddenly felt a bit like a mum who’d lost track of a toddler in a china shop.

She turned back to the white-haired stranger.

“It’s just, you know, you seem like, tweed come to life,” she said. “And I mean that nicely, I swear.”

“No offense taken, my dear.”

“Cool, yeah. So like, you’re not exactly the obsidian-with-inlaid-snake-pattern type, you know? But you love him enough to wear it anyway.”

The man’s eyes changed at that. She realized what it was that struck her about them: they were old. He looked very, very old, then, though he couldn’t have been much older than middle age. Younger than the Doctor looked, even, though they both felt so much older when they let their guards down. He twisted the ring he wore on his other hand, a golden pinky ring with ancient-looking angel wings. It was worn and grimy, presumably from his habit of pulling at it.

“I do, yes, you’re right about that,” he said. He smiled again, but this time it was conspiratorial and small. She felt like she was being let in on a secret. “I- we mean a great deal to one another.”

Bill smiled. He pursed his lips and looked down. It was a coy, cutesy look that completely undermined the thing she’d just thought about his age. She had no idea why the TARDIS had brought them here, but she was glad it had.

“So when’s the date?”

“I’m sorry?”

“The ceremony. I don’t know if you- well, if you have a faith or anything, but you’ll be having a ceremony, right?”

“I’m not actually certain we-” He faltered. “I’m not actually sure this was intended as that type of ring, you see.”

She cocked her head to the side. Now this ancient alien being somehow looked like nothing more than an insecure lovelorn idiot. “Mate,” she said, “it’s on your ring finger and you said you loved him. He gave it to you, yeah?”

“Yes, but … he didn’t say anything about- you see, it’s just that, forgive me for saying so, but marriage is such a _human_ ritual. Doesn’t seem relevant to someone like me.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I-”

Bill interrupted. “Look, I don’t know what type of alien you are, exactly, and I’d probably forget anyway if you told me. The Doctor, he’s the one who usually keeps track of which aliens are which.”

“Indeed he does.”

“But like, what does it mean to you?” She put her elbows on the table and leaned forward, suddenly earnestly concerned about this man’s love life with no idea why. He seemed troubled, and happy, and confused, and old. That was a dangerous combination for an ancient non-human entity, in her experience. “The ring means something to me, as a human. And now I think of it, probably something a little different to me than some other humans. You know, like, a straight person who never had to think about whether they’d get to- you know what I’m saying, right?

“I think I do, yes.”

“So what does it mean to you? This ring.”

“It means- well, it means,” he furrowed his brow, and now he reminded Bill of herself. Puzzling out the possible meanings behind a gesture, a word, or a smile. It was probably the most truly human expression she’d seen him wear so far. “It means that we’re on our own side.”

She nodded.

They sat, silent for a moment. She took a sip of earl grey, which was somehow still warm though it’d been sitting idle while they chatted for quite some time. In the background, she heard a thump of something hitting the floor and a muffled “I’m okay” coming from the stacks. The proprietor ignored it all, sitting silently and contemplating his own teacup.

“So that’s that, then. Why don’t you just ask him? Ask him what it meant to him to give you that.”

“I couldn’t possibly-”

“Why not?”

“We don’t-” He stopped, then considered. “I suppose we don’t typically say what we mean. In a straightforward manner, such as the one you have.”

She made a face. “Well that’s easy enough, then. Just change.”

He chuckled. “Easy enough! Oh my dear, I-”

Bill clapped her hands. The sound echoed loudly in the strange, still room. “I know what you should do!”

“Yes?”

“Give him that.” She pointed to his gold ring. “ ‘S not his style, I reckon?”

“No, that it is not.”

“Perfect. Give him that and you’re even. Opposites, in fact. Even opposites,” she said, folding her arms and leaning back in triumph. “If he loves you enough to wear it like you wear his, then it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks the rings mean. They mean what they mean to you.”

The man was speechless. He opened his mouth and closed it several times.

“I can’t begin to fathom why that thought hadn’t occurred to me,” he said, finally.

“Sometimes even really old, really not-human beings just need a nudge in the right direction.” Bill looked off to the stacks of ancient tomes, where a crash from the backroom proceeded a whirlwind of velvet and gruff Scottish-tinged noises. The Doctor emerged, brushing dust off his coat. His hair was somehow even more messy than usual and his sonic glasses were askew.

“Bill! We’re leaving,” he announced. The Doctor strode toward the door purposefully as a globe trailed behind him and several fallen scrolls unraveled themselves and rolled across the floor in his wake.

Bill stood and so did her host. He took her hand in both of his. It wasn’t quite warm enough to pass as human.

“Thank you, my dear. You’ve been most helpful,” he said, with a genuine smile.

“Anytime, mate. Good luck.”

The Doctor whirled around as they reached the door, his coat whooshing with a dramatic flair. “I’ll get to the bottom of this eventually,” he shouted. He pointed emphatically at the white-haired proprietor of A.Z. Fell & Co. “You may think you’ve fooled the rest of humanity, but I am the guardian of this planet and I will-”

“Yes, yes, I know. Until next time, Doctor.” 

Bill grabbed The Doctor’s arm and pulled him out the door. He kept sputtering and his eyebrows looked like they were about to jump right off his face.

As they reached the TARDIS, the strange man called after them. “Oh, and Doctor? Perhaps next time try something different with your face, yes? You’ve had twelve very handsome, very strong jaws. But a little variety might be in order, don’t you think? Do mind how you go.” 

He waved cheerfully and shut the door.


End file.
